Susan Love, M.D., Cancer Crusader

Someday there will be a cure for breast cancer, but someday isn’t good enough for Dr. Susan Love. In late 2008 the cofounder of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation launched what she hopes will be an accelerated push to eradicate the disease that strikes one in every eight women. “I can’t fathom letting this disease go on for another generation. The time has come to stop it,” says Love, 60, who in October launched the Army of Women initiative, a partnership with the Avon Foundation to recruit one million healthy women of every age and ethnicity to team up directly with breast cancer researchers. It’s just the latest in a string of ambitious projects for the general surgeon. Since deciding to focus on women’s health issues more than 30 years ago, Love has racked up stunning achievements, including developing a model for multidisciplinary breast care at the Revlon/UCLA Breast Center and writing the seminal book on breast cancer, Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. Fortunately for millions of women the world over, this breast cancer warrior vows not to quit until there’s a cure.